intertextuality

Family Guy is a television show full of intertextuality. There is reference to many pieces of texts throughout the show. It also references to many recent events that are taking place at the time.
I chose to do the episode that is referred to as “Soccer Mom.” First, Peter shouts to his son “I love you,” and then mentions to the bystander next to him that is a platonic love. This is referring to the recent rise is the gay community, and also can be reassurance that is there is no inappropriate behavior going on between family members. Chris is playing a soccer game in which he catches the ball. The ref calls a foul and the bystander gets angry at the lack of athletic skills Chris possesses.
The bystander yells for the ref to get “Moby Dick off the field.” This is referring to the popular novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. This Moby Dick is a whale, so this bystander is calling Chris a whale because of his large size on the field. I am sure compared to the other kids that are playing, Chris would be rather large, and the “Moby Dick” reference would be valid. He mentions something before this statement, which could be important, but I cannot understand him, and the reference is unknown to me. Maybe someone else more knowledgeable to what he is talking about would think the statement is funny.
Peter then proceeds to punch this bystander, who looks like a man, but is in fact a woman. She gets seriously injured, and actually goes into labor while on the ground on the soccer field. This, to me, is just nonsense and is not really referring to anything except for how easily amused America is. It can be slightly referring to the man who had a baby, or how genders occasionally dress or act like the opposite sex, but that for the most part is all that comes out of that segment of the TV show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBLDBDFRp6E

Blue Highways pages 1-88

The novel Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon is really horrible to read. I do not find it the slightest bit interesting and it was very difficult to get through the first 88 pages. I actually do not think I even fully comprehended the last half of the reading because I was so bored with the book that I started to space out a little bit. It was very boring and it reminded me of boring high school books that we were forced to read and if I was in high school still, I probably would not read it.
I do not like the style of the book. It seems like he is rushing through his travels and I am not sure where he wants to end up. It skims through the people and his experiences way too fast, and so it makes me less interested. It is more of a travel log, as opposed to a story. I like to connect with characters as I read, and I feel like this will be a very boring book to get through at the pace it has started out on. I cannot image reading any more of this book, and we are nowhere near the end of it.
I really liked Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name. Even though the ending was a little bit disappointing, I still really enjoyed the book. The close connection we had with Clarissa by the end of the book is what I like about reading. In Blue Highways, I do not feel like I have a connection with a character which makes me want to continue reading. I really hope this book starts to get more interesting so it is not such a chore to read the book. It is so long and I cannot image it being any more boring than it already is, so I think it has to get better. I only wish that there is more interaction with characters, as opposed to just mentioning who he meets on his journey, and then does not mention them again.
This book made me fall asleep while reading it. I would rather read another book as opposed to this one because am really not interested in this book. I wish it could be more like Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, and have more of a storyline.